Tag: traffic

19 Nov. – don’t drink and drive even more

a Swedish jail, but still
pic: ticketsnipers.com

Reckless driver? Drunk driver? Repeat offender? The government today announced proposals to significantly increase the penalties for breaking traffic laws.

The maximum sentence for driving unlawfully and/or drunken driving is proposed to be raised from six months to one year. The maximum sentence for gross drunk driving is proposed to be changed from two years in jail to three.

Someone who repeatedly acts particularly recklessly in traffic can get a minimum sentence of 6 months or up to 5 years imprisonment. Recklessly can mean drunkenly, carelessly, and/or unlawfully.

In a written comment, Minister for Justice Morgan Johansson was positive to the proposals. “We cannot allow certain people to put others in danger again and again” (SvD.se/driving).

Johansson might have been referring to a certain case in Kramfors where a repeat offender has racked up 100 convictions for drunk driving, thievery, and threatening behaviour over the past thirty years. As one of his neighbours put it “He’s very shy when he’s sober, but when he’s under the influence he becomes rather a nasty person” (SVT.se/Karmfors).

The new laws are projected to come into effect in January, 2021.

28 Oct. – lower speed limits coming

speed limit change
pic: abc.net.au

Attention speed freaks. DN reported today that speed limits on 111 Swedish miles of roads around the country will have reduced speed limits starting November 1 – or as soon as they get around to re-signing the roads. According to the Swedish Transport Administration (trafikverket), the measure will save 16 lives per year.

The changes are part of national overhaul of all the speed limits around the country. Between 2014 and 2025, the Transport Administration has plans to reduce the speed limit on 425 Swedish miles of road, and raise it on about 120 Swedish miles of road.

1 Swedish mile (mil) is equal to 10 kilometers. Roads will be signed with speed limits between 30 and 120, jumping at 10 kph intervals.

The Swedish Transport Administration has a zero-vision for traffic fatalities, and research says reducing the speed limit reduces deaths. The maximum speed where two cars can collide without “serious consequences,” DN reports, is 80 km/hour – at this speed, the risk of a fatality is 40%. Most roads that do not have a divider will have a speed limit of 80 kph.

How much longer will it take to get somewhere? Technically, and with all other things being equal, travel time increases 50 seconds for every ten kilometers when traveling at 80 kph instead of 90. What does that mean? Countcalculate.com shows that a 300 km trip, at 80 kph instead of 90, will take 25 minutes longer.

25 minutes can be either a blink of an eye or an eternity, and nothing is ever ”all other things being equal.” Whatever the circumstances, says Sandra Nordahl at the Transport Administration, ”a driver must check the signs and follow traffic regulations.”